VIDEO #41: New York Trip OHS, Geek Tour, Maker Faire 2012

New York Global Geek Tour 2012 is presented in the video above. We follow our fearless leader as he finds his place in the Big Apple. There’s food, toys, and geeks aplenty.

The tour starts with the East Village food crawl. Watch a merry band of hackers battle good food and drinks. We hit Oh! Taisho for some meat on sticks, followed by Japadog for some Japanese hot dogs. Then Sake and interviews at Decibel Sake bar. Unfortunately the rest is but a blur.

Friday is an empty hole between OHS on Thursday, and the Maker Faire on Saturday. We plowed it under with an electronics tour New York. We came in force, 22 people crammed into Hack Manhattan’s tiny space.

Next up we invaded Radio Shack. We went in expecting mobile phones and video cables, but we were pleasantly surprised that they actually have some electronics and kits on hand. There were Seeed Studio parts, Arduino kits, and even drawers with actual electronics parts. An improvement from last year, but we were still unable to get all the parts for a Joule Thief PCB that Hack Manhattan gave us.

We fast tracked to the MakerBot store to check out some live 3D printing bots. 3D prints, 3D printers, and spools of ABS plastic were all around us.

In dire need of a recharge, we stopped for some soup dumplings and beer in China Town. By this point there were still 18 of us, so we occupied a huge table and had a relaxing meal.

269 Electronics is a small shop located in the back of a tourist trap in China town. They had the standard resistors, capacitors, and the like. They even did some repair in the back.

After that, we jumped on New York’s filthy subway and went to Leeds Radio in Queens. Are we alone in thinking New York has the most disgusting Subway in the world? Give us Tokyo, Hong Kong, London, or Madrid any day. Anyway – after toiling through that creaking, lurching, stinking tube we were greeted by closed doors. Leeds had shut down earlier in the day due do a sudden zombie attack. The uninfected survivors headed to the Maker Faire to setup and enjoy the after party.

The World Maker Faire occupies Saturday and Sunday. This year we gave away more business cards than every. Probably because people were attracted to the nixie tube display like moths to a flame. We did a few interviews with old friends and people who stopped by the table.

We started off with less than fond memories of New York from last year, but this trip was a hoot! A huge thanks to everyone who make it possible! We’ve been editing continuously since we landed. Now it’s time for sleep, but expect your personal thankyous and followups tomorrow.

*If we had infinite time there’d be music and tighter editing, but instead it’s done now! All swearing is simulated. It’s just a joke! All apologies to Anthony Bourdain.

Robot Brand /Studios/ (studios left out of label)
Cameron at Suspect Devices is misspelled
Don at Suspect Devices is labeled as Cameron in his interview (it was an artifact of Cameron’s video that wasn’t included due to sound issues)

I’ll add more as they’re reported. I landed Tuesday at 5am and got this out 48 hours later – I chose options fast and done, good didn’t make it in ;)

Boooo radioshack! I’ll always be salty at them for being my knowledgeable source for parts at one point in time, then suddenly becoming a cell phone store with blithering durps that don’t know what a resistor is. I may be a little bias though, I spent a lot of time working at my local electronics shop.

Partly. In our bay area maker faire video from this spring bunnie dances through the interview with Wendel with a beer in hand. Absent Wendel used the cutout himself.

We then did a beers with bunnie interview in Singapore where he managed to hold a beer can for the whole thing unbeknownst to us :) and in this video wendel and I hold bottles with bunnie in the background as an homage :) couple layers of hacker strangeness at play there.

I think Chicago’s subway is dirtier or at least scarier. Given that I am from DC originally certainly NY’s is dirty but it also is the most heavily used system in the country. Given what the US is willing to spend on mass transit the result isn’t surprising.

Somewhat shocked at the amount of bleeps needed for this footage. Glad you liked this year more though! I guess it was not having to share space with me :-P.

I never really mind Chicago’s Subway, not that it’s the epitome of cleanliness. I grew up near it so maybe I don’t notice.

I think it’s really sad that the most used public transit in the US (besides the airlines, lol) is such an omnishambles. The rolling stock is actually really great! But the stations – wow – they really are rat infested sewers. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! I don’t mind gritty! I’d say I like it.

It’s not a very good ad for transit in the rest of the country, that’s for sure. When bumpkins from Iowa show up at the Times Square tourist apocalypse they see even that key station as festering wound. Just my humble opinion as a dedicated transit user (and nerd!).

I really did like New York a lot more this year, after kind of dreading this trip. Staying central is key, or we end up on the 7 train in and out of town every day.

Of all mass transit in the US, DC gets my vote for huge clean stations. But I would say I likely am biased. BART is the same train set but really dirty relatively speaking. Though the system in SF is good over all.

It a bit funny but there was an incident of a costumer being tackled by an officer for refusing to put down her candy bar (food is not allowed in DC’s subway). Overzealous: yes. Does it keep the rats out: yes.

BTW Ian, I confess to being a big transit nerd also I go out of my way at times to use them. Worst system in the US (that I have used): LA. Wow. Though like Chicago I did go through on the worst areas of the city on it (Compton, vs south side).

Metro North if you have any reason to leave the city to the burbs is immaculate of course I am more thinking rolling stock than Grand central which you could argue has somewhat nasty platforms also. The suburban stations are nice though.